Climate Change and Use of Energy.

Final Project. Second Advance.

PROPOSALS

● Investing in the purchase of hybrid trucks or an electric system that allows the dispose of harmful waste without the use of conventional trucks (diesel). ● To reduce CO2e emissions and increase production of electricity, use fugitive methane as a power generator plant.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Proposal #1:

Truck emissions are one of the most important contributors to CO​2​e road transportemissions. In fact, they contribute with 20-25% of GHG emissions (even though they areonly 5% of the vehicles on the road), and, according to governmental organizations, this netemissions are thought to increase up to 2030. Since most of the trucks used in the company(Peñoles) are classified as Class 7 or Class 8 (with a capacity from 33,000 lb. to more than70,000 lb.), it’s very important to achieve a plan that allows the company to reduce its CO2​eemissions.

The proposal, is to invest in the purchase of a revolutionary zero-emissions battery-electric

system developed by Transportation Power (TransPower) for installation into Class 8 (oreven 7) conventional road trucks, which allows trucks go on for 80-100 miles when fullycharged, transport nearly 80,000 lb. at 65 mph, and, the best of all, produce 0 emissions ofGHG (at least, not directly). Trucks with this technology, are powered by two 200-hp electricmotors. Currently, the total quantity of CO2e gases produced by Peñoles is 55,336 tons peryear (talking about transportation of materials and crew). 1As we noted above, there are not direct emissions of Greenhouse Gases. However, indirectemissions are generated from the power plants that generate the electricity used byTransPower-powered trucks. As the company says:“Accounting for the greenhouse gases produced by power plants to generate the electricityused by the TransPower-powered trucks, the vehicle is expected to reduce GHG in typicaldrayage drive cycles by 67-68%. “This represents a net reduction of more than a ton of GHG for every 1,000 miles the truck isdriven, as compared with an equivalent diesel truck.

Proposal #2:Methane, the principal component of natural gas, is often present in deep coal seams and isa safety hazard to miners because it is explosive in concentrations ranging from 5 to 15percent in air. Therefore, gassy underground coal mines employ large-scale ventilationsystems. These systems dilute methane released into the mine workings as coal is extractedand remove the gas from the mine, thereby maintaining safe working conditions.2

Our proposal is to develop a power generation plant that converts extremely dilutemethane from the mine into electricity.In November 2007 BHP Illawarra Coals West Cliff Mine, south-west of Sydney, developed apower generation plant to convert extremely dilute methane in the ventilation air from themine into electricity. Gas is captured and used to generate 1.2 megawatts of electricitythrough the power plant situated near the mine. Since 1995 the mine has been capturingand using the methane gas, drained from coal seams prior to mining for safety reasons. Yetnot all the methane is able to be captured, and only small percentages of methane arepresent in the ventilation air released from underground operations. 3The development of power plant technology is said to create a greenhouse gas emissionsaving of up to 240 000 tons of CO2 equivalent every year, which is around 6% in reductionof greenhouse gas emissions4, and enough energy to power 60 000 homes each year.If implemented, Peñoles’s power generation plant would have an annual reduction of 144000 tons of CO2 equivalent, which would result in a total of 2.25 million tons of CO2e.

Proposal #1:TransPower’s on-road truck has an equivalent energy cost of 23 cents per mile, as comparedwith $1.49 per mile for a typical diesel truck (an 85% reduction in cost).5

5 ​Vehicle In-Use Data. Transpowerusa.com N.p, 2016. Web 1 May. 2016. Retrieved from:http://www.transpowerusa.com/data-center/vehicle-in-use-dataThese results have been confirmed by real-world operations.According to the company’s webpage (Transpower),and a paper published by the company,their motor trucks are commercially available, high performance, reliability of $50,000 peryear in fuel savings, which offer a payback in as little as 150,000-200,000 miles.6

Proposal #2:While the proposal might not be the most inexpensive one, it is beneficial in several aspectswhich is why we think it is a fair enough to spend and invest money in this.The USEPA estimated that, globally, upper bound estimates for the VAM mitigation marketin 2002 were 167.1 million tonnes CO2e (11.7 Bm3 methane), producing $8.4 billion inequipment sales and $880 million in annual electricity revenues.